Queer Places:
Hadley House, Hadley Green Road, Monken Hadley, Barnet, Hertfordshire / Greater London, EN5 5PY
The Beacon House, Hadley Green Road, Monken Hadley, Barnet, Hertfordshire / Greater London, EN5 5PY
The Plash, Todds Green, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2JE, United Kingdom
Whinfell Quarry Garden, Quarry, 7 Whinfell Ct, Sheffield S11 9QA, United Kingdom

Clarence Elliott (November 3, 1881 - February 18, 1969) was born on November 3, 1881, at Hadley House on Hadley Green Road in Monken Hadley, Hertfordshire, near Barnet. Educated at Giggleswick School in West Yorkshire, he early on developed a passion for botany and horticulture. He formally trained in the trade at two prestigious British nurseries—Rivers of Sawbridgeworth and Backhouse of York—before embarking in 1902 on a three-year venture as a fruit farmer near Paarl in South Africa. Upon returning to England in 1905, he resided for a time at Beacon House in Hadley, Herts. Around this period, he donated and sold several archaeological artifacts, such as flints from Washington, USA, to the British Museum and to collector Dr. W. A. Sturge, though his name was mistakenly entered as "Charles Elliott" in the museum's accession register.

In 1906, Elliott established the Six Hills Nursery near Stevenage, Hertfordshire—taking the name from the nearby ancient burial mounds—and lived at a property known as The Plash in Stevenage. The nursery quickly grew world-famous for its specialized alpine and rockery plants. Over the decades, Six Hills employed and nurtured several renowned figures in British horticulture, including Graham Stuart Thomas, Will Ingwerson, and E. K. Balls. Elliott was an active exhibitor at Royal Horticultural Society shows, earning numerous awards for his innovative rock garden displays, and in 1929 he became a founding member of the Alpine Garden Society. His expertise led to major commissions, such as his 1912 design of the limestone rock garden and water cascade for Samuel Doncaster at the Whinfell Quarry Garden in Sheffield.

Beyond his nursery operations, Elliott gained legendary status as a plant hunter and explorer. Although his early travels outside Europe were limited to South Africa and the Falkland Islands, he launched major South American collecting expeditions with his friend and botanical collaborator, William Balfour Gourlay, between 1927 and 1930. Their journeys took them through Havana, Panama, Callao, and Valparaíso, venturing deep into Coquimbo, the Andes, Temuco, Tierra del Fuego, and Patagonia, followed by a subsequent voyage to western North America in 1931. During these travels, Elliott collected widespread wild plant species, famously introducing the fragrant Leucocoryne ixioides ("Glory of the Sun") to Western cultivation and discovering a unique bisexual dwarf form of Ruscus aculeatus (later named 'Elizabeth Lawrence'). He also famously spotted a hardy, dramatic fuchsia in the nearby garden of a neighbor during a tennis party, propagating it into the world-famous cultivar 'Mrs Popple', alongside other famed selections like Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant' and Saxifraga 'Clarence Elliott'.

Elliott's expeditions were equally notable for the menagerie of livestock and fauna he brought back to Britain. In addition to supplying London Zoo with Galapagos tortoises, pygmy deer, giant edible frogs, and rare birds, he brought back blue-egg-laying Araucana hens from Patagonia. These birds were shared with geneticist R. C. Punnett at Cambridge University for poultry breeding research, laying the foundational stock for the modern commercial pastel-egg brand known today as Clarence Court.

Throughout his life, Elliott was closely tied to the social and intellectual circles of early 20th-century horticulture, including connections within the LGBTQ+ community of plant collectors. Most notably, he maintained a close relationship with Reginald Farrer, the legendary traveller, author, and plant explorer widely remembered as the "father of rock gardening." The two frequented major botanical expeditions together, such as their documented stay at Clarence Bicknell's Casa Fontanalba in July 1910, sharing a passion for high-altitude flora and rock garden design.

On November 28, 1911, Elliott married Phyllis Mary Eyre in Croydon, London. Together they raised three children: Paul Kingsley, Joseph John, and Linnaea Clarence. Elliott was also a prolific writer and editor; early in his career in 1907, he revised and reedited the botanical classic Flowers of the Field by Rev. C. A. Johns, authored works on rock garden design, and later penned the long-running column "In an English Garden" for the Illustrated London News from 1951 to 1964.

Following the Second World War, the original Six Hills Nursery site in Stevenage was acquired by the government to build the Stevenage New Town development, leading to the nursery's closure in 1954. Elliott subsequently retired to Broadwell in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, settling near his son Joe Elliott, who continued the family legacy by operating his own nursery. Clarence Elliott passed away on February 18, 1969, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, leaving behind a profound legacy in British garden design and global plant introduction.

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